Sedgemoor and Killiecrankie
Many of them were armed with nothing more than scythe blades mounted on the end of long poles. This rag-tag army of farmers and weavers took on the might of the British army, with its muskets and plug bayonets. After a night march, in a failed attempt to surprise the enemy camp, the rebels faced volleys of musket fire and then a merciless pursuit by the king's regiments, thirsting for rebel blood.
'... Killiecrankie marked the beginning of the first of the Jacobite rebellions that were to blight Scotland for the next 50 years.'
Four years after Sedgemoor, in 1689, the battle of Killiecrankie marked the beginning of the first of the Jacobite rebellions that were to blight Scotland for the next 50 years. By now King James II was the rebel, with his throne taken from him in 1688 by William of Orange, during the so-called Glorious Revolution.
While James fought for his cause in Ireland, his supporters in Scotland, the Jacobites, led a government army on a merry dance around the Highlands, finally meeting them in pitched battle in the dramatic Pass of Killiecrankie.
The Jacobites, under John Graham of Claverhouse (known to history as Bonnie Dundee), were outnumbered almost two to one. They took position on the high ground and watched government troops form up on the slopes below. The commander of the 4,000 strong government force, Major General Hugh MacKay, a Highlander himself but with no love of the land or its people, arrayed his men in ranks three deep.
It was more usual to place musketeers six deep, but MacKay was about to use a technique newly introduced from continental Europe, called platoon firing. This would in theory allow his men to deliver a constant hail of fire. Instead of delivering fire en masse, small groups, or platoons, gave fire in a well-rehearsed order, thus allowing one group to reload while another fired.
'... the government troops found themselves embroiled in hand-to-hand fighting, and the Jacobites soon had them on the run.'
MacKay has been criticised for stretching his lines too thin, but in truth he was a man not afraid to deploy new tactics. After several tense hours of facing one another off, the Jacobites finally charged down the hill. What nerve it must have taken to run into the face of massed musket fire.
Their blood up, the Jacobites, most of them armed with small round shields, known as targes, and double-edged broadswords, hurtled down the slope. Before they could get off more than three shots each, the government troops found themselves embroiled in hand-to-hand fighting, and the Jacobites soon had them on the run. It was a classic example of a successful Highland charge, but Bonnie Dundee was killed as he led his cavalry into the firing line, and the rebellion petered to a halt within months.
The slaughter wrought by the Jacobites, who had worked themselves up into a killing frenzy, is remembered to this day. Lochiel, one of the Jacobite commanders, brought his clansmen back to the field the next day to show them the product of their labours, and his men were horrified at what they had done in the heat of battle.
By the time of Killiecrankie the musket had become the dominant weapon on the battlefield, but it was the broadsword that won the day, largely through the superior use of terrain by the Jacobites.
Published: 2003-12-08
Bookmark with:
What are these?